A traveller's life

Published in 1982, this book collects chapters which cover a lifetime of travel and experiences, from Newby's early childhood to his leaving his job at The Observer as Travel Editor, in 1973.

For me the stories are quite a mixture, and a bit hit and miss. However the hits are classic Newby - well composed and often hilarious, and they outweigh the misses, which generally involved topics or people with which I was unfamiliar and to be honest not particularly interested it. Again, I would stress that those stories were a minority.

While Newby references his other books, he avoids stories directly from them, but works in adjacency - for example in India, just before his Slowly Down the Ganges journey he is invited on a shoot with two Indian princes - nephews of the Nizam of Hyderabad, so he tells this story and not his Ganges journey. His chapters are all arranged chronically, and labelled by year, and almost read like a list of all the positions of employment, and journey he had been on (including being a prisoner of war in Germany in WW2).

There is also much about Newby's time in the fashion industry. I knew he was involved in the family business, but hadn't realised he left that fairly early in his career to work for fashion giant John Lewis Partnership.

Overall, I would have to say this ranks slightly below his other short story collection Departures and Arrivals, although they both get three stars.